Chuck Fadely has advice for you if you have $20,000 to spend on video equipment, but in his world, after the $20,000 is spent, you have no video camera.
I’ve outfitted newsrooms with two of these each, plus three or more inexpensive digital cameras, plus two each of the Marantz MP3 records and all the accessories for $18,000.
Now I favor the Sony HDR-FX1 for “high end” video, and as many Lumix DMC-TZ1s as you can stuff into the newsroom. In fact, I’d argue that if you’ve only got $10,000, buy only the Lumix cameras and give the leftovers to your readers.
Remember, you’re shooting and editing video for the web, not television. Don’t waste dollars on unnecessary fluff in the name of quality that will be completely lost in translation. Editing stations? Bah! Give me a laptop and iMovie (though, there’s nothing wrong with Final Cut Pro if you can afford it).
Previously:
Why do you like the Marantz audio recorder better than the Edirol R-9 or the M-Audio MicroTrack? Just curious.
Great question, Mindy. First, because I’ve never heard of those recorders! But thanks for the tip! Those look pretty good for portable. The Marantz is pretty darn flexible for both radio-quality recording (it does do it) and podcast. You can easily hook it into a mixing board and multiple mics, or just do a one-person thing. Again, MP3 for easy file transfer. But it is more expensive than these other units — so you know I love cheapo gear that gets the web job done. Thanks for the tip.
“Remember, you’re shooting and editing video for the web, not television. Don’t waste dollars on unnecessary fluff in the name of quality that will be completely lost in translation.”
Nothing gets lost in translation if you’re using the right codec. The Flash 8 flv codec is awesome for that. None of that nasty pixelization that you get with Windows Media (or YouTube).
As for editing, iMovie is pure evil. For a mere $300, Final Cut Express does just about everything you can do with Pro in half the time it takes to do it with iMovie.
Happy editing.
It’s not just the pixel quality, Anthony. Web is not television, and we’re probably a couple of years away from digital technology catching up. But even when it does, user expectations for this medium are quite different from television.
iMovie does the job … and if all you can afford is a Lumix and iMovie or MovieMaker, it’s a suitable option. It will get the job done. It’s better than nothing.
Newspaper budget managers who will spend money on this are just as likely to spend $300 for FCE and $1,000 for FCP, so it’s really a matter of starting out on getting by at the very low end, or spending $10 to $20K for the next step up. Which is isn’t going to give you TV quality video, but it’s going to give you top-of-the-line web video.
howard,
you sound like if you were a photographer you’d be using a point and shoot.
your newspaper company must like you — your are CHEAP!
newspaper gear get’s beat up when USED EVERYDAY! you need stuff that will last through time.
good gear = good multimedia storytelling — you can’t jip the multimedia journalist from good quality gear.
plus good professional gear means it will last a long time and be durable
if you keep going with crappy cheap gear — you will get that result cheap crappy quality.
-seth
When I was a young reporter, all the papers carried point-and-shoot cameras. I was the only one with a 35mm, which I had only because my brother gave me. The arrangement worked fine.
The The Sony Cybershot I carry with me every day is holding up just fine. Any piece of equipment is going to break if you don’t take care of it.
Bakesfield.com is producing a lot of very fine video with inexpensive cameras.
Inexpensive does not necessarily equal poor quality or lack of durability. That just simply is not true. And high end is no guarantee of quality. You can shoot crappy video just as well with a $4,000 camera as you can with a $400 camera. It all depends on who’s holding it and how well they’re trained and how much he or she cares about details.
On the other hand, I’m a lot less nervous about a reporter breaking or losing a $400 camera than I am a $4,000 camera. One I can replace without breaking the budget. The other can’t be replaced until the next budget year. That isn’t an argument against buying the $4,000 camera — you have to have those, too, but if you’re going to put a camera in the hand of every reporter, you can’t do it with $4,000 cameras. Roanoke can’t afford that either. Or can they? If so, why is every one of your reportes out there with a big fat camera?
At least I’m proposing buying the cameras for the reporters, which is a far cry from my old publisher, who expected us all to supply our own cameras. So that’s hardly a cheap proposal.
BTW: Nobody is asking a photographer to use a point and shoot. That’s an irritating statement. And if you hire a videographer, then you need to budget to fully outfit him or here with quality equipment. To do otherwise is rather silly. That misses the entire point of everything I’ve written about video, including my reviews of TimesCast.
I will throw some gas on the fire. If you are willing to use video footage from point and shoot cameras online, I am not sure you need the high end, $4,000 camera at all.
We have a pair of Canon XL2s in our newsroom and they are only rarely used. Even our most experienced shooters (including one fella with broadcast TV experience) favor our Casio Z850 cameras. They are quicker (no lengthy capturing process) and they have as good image as the Canon (once you compress the footage.)
It’s nice to have the Canon for long distance shots or internal video production. But for day-in-day-out use, we don’t need them.
As for reliability, we have used Sony and Casio consumer grade (point and shoot!) cameras for the past year without a single problem. To give you perspective how often they are used, we have shot 600+ videos this past year using those cameras.
[…] Davin’s comment on the post below deserves to be elevated to its own post: I will throw some gas on the fire. If you are willing to use video footage from point and shoot cameras online, I am not sure you need the high end, $4,000 camera at all. We have a pair of Canon XL2s in our newsroom and they are only rarely used. Even our most experienced shooters (including one fella with broadcast TV experience) favor our Casio Z850 cameras. They are quicker (no lengthy capturing process) and they have as good image as the Canon (once you compress the footage.) […]